Cold Case: Family hopes for justice in 2006 slaying of Carl Wells Jr.

Sunday

Jul 20, 2014 at 10:38 PM

Matt Buedel Journal Star Caterpillar/industry reporter @journobuedel

PEORIA — Carl Wells Jr. had only been outside for a few seconds when the gunshots rang out — eight of them, maybe nine, fired close enough to his body that the muzzle blast left burn marks on his clothes.

He ran back into his sister’s house at 916 W. Third St. too keyed up on adrenaline from the encounter that late winter night to realize he had been shot. One of the .22-caliber bullets had caught him in the back.

Wells collapsed on the kitchen floor a few minutes before 11 p.m. March 11, 2006. He died soon afterward, in the early morning hours of March 12, at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.

The homicide, which police call a casualty of a lengthy gang feud that had claimed the life of Wells’ brother less than one year earlier and would envelop more victims, remains unsolved.

Police are highlighting the death in conjunction with CrimeStoppers as part of a monthly review of cold cases in the hope that renewed attention will bring forward new information and lead to an arrest.

The case is directly connected to a different cold case that recently reached some resolution: that of Robbin Underwood. She was shot the day of Wells’ funeral, caught in the crossfire of the same feuding factions that police believe caused Wells’ death. Two men were charged with Underwood’s murder earlier this month, with a third man expected to be charged at a later time.

Wells’ family wants the same justice for the man they describe as having a magnetic personality and willingness to help anybody in need.

“When stuff wasn’t going right, he’d always be there to help them out, and that was for anybody,” said Carla Griffin, Wells’ sister. “I’m still not right from it at all — I’m very emotional, angry, because it could be someone who’s walking by me every day who killed my brother and I just don’t know it.”

Griffin, who graduated high school the same year as her brother in 1998, had been living in Quincy until just two weeks before Wells was shot outside the house he helped her find. He had persuaded her to move back to Peoria, and she still lives there more than eight years later, unable to forget the scene that unfolded in her kitchen but also unable to let the house go.

The domicile features prominently in the theories about Wells’ death. The sister hadn’t lived there long, so it wasn’t a regular hangout for Wells where someone would have gone looking for him. And he had just walked out the door to go start his car when he was shot.

“He was outside for less than a minute, probably like 30 seconds — that’s such a short time, not enough time for an argument or any interaction,” said Det. Jason Spanhook. “That points to an ambush.”

Griffin said her brother had been getting ready to go out that Saturday night for one last celebration before starting a new job the following Monday. His death left three children without a father and a large family in mourning.

Wells, 25 at the time of his death, was one of 13 siblings and the second to die from gunfire within a year. His brother, Mark D. Walker, then 22, was shot May 13, 2005, in a car in the 800 block of West Russell Street.

Kyron Murdock was later convicted of murder in Walker’s slaying and sentenced to 52 years in prison. Testimony at trial indicated Murdock was with Micah Foreman when they saw Walker in Anthony King’s car and Murdock opened fire on the vehicle. Foreman was the intended target of the gunfire that killed Robbin Underwood the day of Wells’ funeral, according to the recently filed murder charges in that case. With the group that opened fire on Foreman, but not firing a gun himself, was King.

Darryel Wells, the uncle of Carl Wells Jr. whose family largely raised “Little Carl” from the time he was a boy, said his nephew had childhood friends who took a violent path in life but that he thought Little Carl had turned away from that fate.

“He made a left turn and went down the wrong road for a while, but he got his life back,” Darryel Wells said. “Of all the people who could end up murdered, I didn’t think it would be Little Carl. He had his head on straight.”

Both Darryel Wells and Griffin instead remember the man who loved to attend sporting events of any type, but particularly enjoyed basketball, and was generous with loved ones and strangers alike.

For anyone with information on her brother’s death, Griffin has a plea: “If you’re afraid to talk, tell somebody else what happened, make an anonymous call, anything. This has got to come to an end.”

Matt Buedel can be reached at 686-3154 or mbuedel@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @JournoBuedel.